Although OS X might have a reputation as the platform of choice for digital music production, there are hundreds of great music programs for PC that offer similar or better features than their Mac counterparts.

From industry standards like Ableton Live and FL Studio to free music production software like Audacity, read on to learn about the five best music programs for PC for music recording, mixing and production. [Read more…]

Using words to express complex ideas in an emotional and relate-able way is one of the many definitions that exist for poetry. To understand what makes the best poetry, you need to understand what connects people on a basic level. Some of the best poets ever have gone through incredible trauma that created pain that everyone can relate to. To learn the messages in the most powerful pieces of poetry, you must learn how to memorize and understand poetry. Worry not, there are ways to learn how to understand poetry and tricks and courses that teach how to memorize poetry. Memorizing poetry will help you create the artistic repetition of the words in poems inside your head. This will help you, in turn, understand the poetic tones of the world around you. Practice makes perfect and finding the best poetry starts with understanding what makes poetry great.

From Wes Montgomery to Al Di Meola, a huge number of classic and contemporary jazz guitarists have made their mark on the music world. While it might seem difficult, it’s surprisingly easy to learn how to play jazz guitar with the right materials.

In this guide, you’ll learn the basics of playing jazz guitar – from the most common scales and chords used in jazz music to the techniques and alternative tunings that form the basis of some of the most popular jazz pieces and guitar solos. [Read more…]

From the Dorian mode to the dominant seventh chord, many of the mainstays of jazz can seem completely foreign to guitarists trained in classical, rock and metal playing styles that require an entirely different chord and scale repertoire.

Luckily, jazz guitar is surprisingly easy to learn once you understand the basics of music theory and the specific techniques used in jazz music. From the top licks for jazz solos to the best chord progressions, read on to learn the basics of jazz guitar.

Are you just starting your jazz guitar lessons? Before you start learning jazz scales, chord progressions and specific techniques, master the basics of playing an electric guitar with our Complete Guitar System: Beginner to Advanced course.

Have you watched lead guitar masters like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci play and wonder how they do it? While lead guitar might seem like an impossibility as first, it’s far from impossible once you master the right techniques.

From basic skills like alternate picking to advanced lead guitar techniques such as tapping and sweep picking, read on to discover the best lead guitar lessons to help you rock the fretboard like Slash, Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen.

Are you just getting started with electric guitar? Before you start trying to play fast and complicated lead guitar solos, master the basics of guitar technique and rhythm guitar with our Complete Guitar System: Beginner to Advanced course.

“Dueling Banjos” was an instrumental song that was written by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith in 1955. The song, as its name aptly alludes to, was written to be played by two banjos. The song plays out as a musical competition between two banjos. It starts quietly and slowly as each banjo lays down equally impressive riffs in a battle to one-up the other. The song builds up as the battle intensifies between the two banjos until both have meshed together to make a truly amazing sound. It’s a truly fun-sounding song and one that banjo players find to be a fun song to play. The banjo isn’t an instrument that many people pick up, but when you hear a banjo player play, it sounds very impressive. The actor Steve Martin is someone who has become an accomplished banjo player. Steve Martin has captured the opinion of many banjo players when he says, “The banjo is such a happy instrument–you can’t play a sad song on the banjo – it always comes out so cheerful.” While it’s not a popular instrument, the banjo is great if you’re into more bluegrass styles or the happy kinds of tunes that Steve Martin describes. Playing guitar is great, but there are certain types of music that the banjo is much better for. Below you’ll learn some tips on how to begin to play the banjo.

If you enjoy Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers Band, or George Harrison, then you might be familiar with the technique known as guitar slides that these bands used to achieve that particular “sliding” sound on the guitar. Guitar sliding is a popular and unique guitar technique that came about in the early 20th century, and was popularized by a Hawaiian guitarist by the name of Joseph Kekeku.

Do you remember going home in high school or middle school to turn on MTV, lay back on the couch with an after school snack, and watch your favorite musicians groove and move to the latest hit songs? Music videos were popular then, and they still are now. It is always fun to see creativity and imagery applied to your favorite hit song to create a short film. With all the technology available today, it has become easy to make your own music video. If you have a knack for combining technology with creativity, then read on as we go over how to make your own music video in 6 easy-to-follow steps.

Sometimes playing your guitar in standard tuning just isn’t enough. When playing particular music types, it’s often easier to tune your guitar so that chords are played instead of individual notes. This is done using open tuning. Below are five different types of open tunings – open D, open C, open G, open A, and open E. Using a capo, you can easily change certain open tunings into other open tuning types. A capo on the second fret will change an open D tuning to an open E, and an open G will be changed to an open A. You can learn more about other types of guitar tunings in this article. Take a class in guitar essentials.

From classical bands and orchestras to improvisational jazz combos, the trumpet has long had a prevalent place in music. If you are looking to become an accomplished player in either sphere, the first steps you need to take in order to get there involve getting comfortable with having the trumpet in your hands, and in connection, becoming familiar with trumpet fingering patterns. And as is the case with most instruments, the best way to build this comfort is to start practicing and mastering major scales.

Need some musical background before you start playing the trumpet? Take Udemy’s Keyboard Basics course to learn about major and minor scales on the most standard of all instruments: the piano.

Playing trumpet scales, of course, is different than playing scales with a piano or guitar. While the 12 major scales are inherently always the same in the notes and intervals that make them up, the way those scales are produced by each individual instrument is quite different. With the trumpet, the learning curve is higher than usual because players have to understand both how to produce fingering patterns as well as how to produce notes with the mouth shape (called embouchure) and breath support. Before you move on with this guide to playing trumpet scales, you might consider taking Udemy’s “Trumpet – A Beginner’s Guide” course, just to get a primer on these and other building block skills.